The Contractor Business Checklist

1 Marketing (Items 1-10)

1. Set up Google Business Profile with 10+ photos and your exact service area. Include before/after shots of real jobs. Make sure your hours, phone number, and categories are accurate. Respond to every review within 48 hours.
2. Collect at least 25 Google reviews with specific project details. After every completed job, text the customer a direct link to leave a review. Coach them to mention the type of work done (e.g., "replaced water heater" not just "great service").
3. Build a one-page website that loads in under 3 seconds with a click-to-call button. Your site needs your phone number in the header, a list of services, service area, and at least 3 customer reviews. Skip the stock photos.
4. Create a dedicated landing page for each service you offer. If you do plumbing, HVAC, and drain cleaning, each service gets its own page with pricing info, FAQ, and photos of that specific work. This helps Google rank you for each service.
5. Set up call tracking so you know which marketing channel each lead comes from. Use a tool like CallRail or WhatConverts. Assign a unique phone number to Google Ads, your website, and your truck wrap. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.
6. Run Google Local Service Ads (LSAs) with a verified "Google Guaranteed" badge. LSAs show above regular search ads and you only pay per lead, not per click. Complete the background check and insurance verification to get the badge.
7. Ask your top 5 customers for a video testimonial you can use on your website. Short 30-60 second clips shot on a phone work great. Ask them what the problem was, how you fixed it, and whether they would recommend you.
8. Set up a referral program that pays $50-$100 per booked job. Print referral cards with a unique code for each customer. Track who referred whom and pay out within a week. Your best leads will always come from happy customers.
9. Claim and update your profiles on Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack, and HomeAdvisor. Even if you do not pay for leads on these platforms, keep the listings accurate so customers searching there find correct info about your business.
10. Send a monthly email to past customers with a seasonal maintenance tip and a referral offer. Use Mailchimp or similar (free up to 500 contacts). Include one useful tip (e.g., "3 things to do before winter hits your pipes") and a "refer a friend" CTA.

2 Finance (Items 11-20)

11. Calculate your true cost per hour including overhead, insurance, and vehicle costs. Add up rent, insurance, truck payments, fuel, tools, phone, software, and licenses. Divide by billable hours per month. Most contractors underestimate this by 30-40%.
12. Set your minimum job price so no truck roll loses money. If your loaded cost to send a tech is $150/hr and a service call takes at least an hour with drive time, your minimum should be at least $200. Do not discount below this.
13. Open a separate business bank account and stop mixing personal and business funds. Get a dedicated checking account for the business. Pay yourself a fixed owner's draw every two weeks. This makes taxes simple and shows your real profit.
14. Set aside 25-30% of every payment for taxes in a separate savings account. Transfer it the same day you get paid. Quarterly estimated taxes are due in April, June, September, and January. Late payments trigger penalties.
15. Build a 3-month cash reserve that covers payroll, rent, and insurance even if no new jobs come in. Start with one month and build from there. This buffer is what lets you say no to bad jobs and wait for good ones.
16. Require a 50% deposit on jobs over $1,000 before ordering materials. Write it into your contract. Collect the deposit before scheduling the work. This protects your cash flow and filters out tire-kickers.
17. Track your gross profit margin on every job, not just revenue. Revenue minus materials and labor equals gross profit. If you are doing $500K in revenue but your margins are 20%, you are making $100K before overhead. Know this number for every job type.
18. Review and renegotiate your insurance annually with at least 3 competing quotes. General liability, workers comp, and commercial auto are your biggest non-payroll expenses. Rates vary by 30-50% between carriers for the same coverage.
19. Invoice the same day the job is completed, not at the end of the week or month. Use your field service software to generate and email the invoice from the job site. The faster you invoice, the faster you get paid. Net-30 is for corporate clients, not residential work.
20. Hire a bookkeeper or accountant who works with contractors, not a generalist. They should understand progress billing, job costing, and change orders. Ask for 3 references from other trade businesses. Expect to pay $300-$600/month.

3 Operations (Items 21-30)

21. Use field service software to schedule, dispatch, and invoice from one system. Tools like Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, or Jobber replace whiteboards and spreadsheets. Pick one, commit to it, and make your crew use it every day.
22. Create a written checklist for every job type your crew performs. A drain cleaning checklist, a water heater install checklist, an AC tune-up checklist. Laminate them and put them in every truck. This catches mistakes before the customer does.
23. Set a target of under 2-hour response time for new leads during business hours. Measure it. The contractor who calls back first wins 78% of the time, according to a 2023 ServiceTitan report. An answering service costs $1-$2 per call and is worth every penny.
24. Stock your trucks with the 20 most common parts so techs can close jobs on the first visit. Track what parts your team uses most over 90 days. Pre-stock those items. First-visit completion rate should be above 80%.
25. Send automated appointment reminders via text 24 hours and 2 hours before the job. This cuts no-shows by 30-40%. Most field service apps include this feature. Turn it on.
26. Run a 15-minute morning huddle with your crew to review the day's schedule. Cover who is going where, what parts they need, and any tricky jobs. This takes 15 minutes and prevents 2 hours of confusion later.
27. Document your standard operating procedures so any trained tech can follow them. Write down how you want the phone answered, how estimates are presented, how trucks are stocked, and how callbacks are handled. If it is only in your head, it dies when you go on vacation.
28. Track your average ticket size monthly and set a target to increase it by 10%. If your average residential service call is $280, aim for $310. Train techs to offer maintenance agreements, upgrades, and add-ons without being pushy.
29. Take before-and-after photos of every job and store them in a shared folder. These photos become marketing material, proof of work for disputes, and training examples. Make it a non-negotiable part of the job completion process.
30. Schedule quarterly maintenance on all vehicles and equipment before something breaks. A blown transmission on a work truck costs $4,000+ and a week of lost revenue. Oil changes and tire rotations cost $200 and an hour of downtime.

4 Growth (Items 31-40)

31. Hire your first office person to answer phones and schedule before hiring another tech. Your highest-paid techs should not be answering phones between jobs. A part-time office coordinator at $18-$22/hr frees up thousands in tech productivity.
32. Write a one-page job description for every role in your company, including your own. Define who does what. Even if you only have 3 people, write it down. Clarity prevents arguments and makes onboarding faster when you do hire.
33. Set revenue targets by month, not just annually, and review them weekly. Break your annual goal into monthly targets. Put it on a whiteboard everyone can see. If you are behind in March, you do not want to find out in December.
34. Build a training program so new hires reach full productivity in 30 days, not 90. Create a week-by-week onboarding plan. Week 1: shadow a senior tech. Week 2: handle basic calls supervised. Week 3: solo on simple jobs. Week 4: full schedule.
35. Offer a maintenance agreement program to convert one-time customers into recurring revenue. Price it at $15-$25/month for an annual HVAC tune-up or plumbing inspection plus priority scheduling and a 10% parts discount. A 200-member program at $20/month is $48K/year in predictable revenue.
36. Identify your most profitable job types and market specifically for those. Pull a report of gross profit by job type over the last 12 months. If bathroom remodels make you $4,000 in profit and service calls make $150, spend more marketing dollars on remodels.
37. Partner with 3-5 complementary trades for cross-referrals. If you do plumbing, build relationships with electricians, HVAC techs, and general contractors who can send you work and vice versa. Take them to lunch. Build real relationships, not just handshake deals.
38. Add a second revenue stream like equipment sales, maintenance plans, or property management contracts. Service-only businesses are volatile. Adding recurring revenue or higher-margin project work smooths out the seasonal dips.
39. Pay your best techs 10-15% above market rate and create a bonus structure tied to customer reviews. Turnover costs you $5,000-$10,000 per tech in recruiting, training, and lost productivity. Paying well is cheaper than hiring constantly.
40. Stop doing every estimate yourself and train a team member to handle quotes under $5,000. You are the bottleneck. If every estimate requires the owner, your growth is capped by your calendar. Train someone, give them a pricing guide, and let them run.

5 Technology (Items 41-47)

41. Accept credit cards and mobile payments on every job site. Use Square, Stripe, or your field service app's built-in payment processing. Cash and check customers pay slower and dispute more. Card payments clear in 1-2 business days.
42. Set up GPS tracking on all company vehicles to optimize routes and verify job times. Tools like Verizon Connect or GPS Trackit cost $25-$40/month per truck. You will save that in fuel and catch time theft within the first week.
43. Use a flat-rate pricing app like Profit Rhino or PricingHQ instead of time-and-materials quotes. Flat-rate pricing removes guesswork, speeds up the sales process, and increases average ticket by 15-30% because customers can see options and choose upgrades.
44. Automate your review requests to send a text with a Google review link after every completed job. Tools like NiceJob, BirdEye, or Podium do this for $50-$200/month. Consistent review collection is worth more than any single marketing campaign.
45. Set up a shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder for contracts, templates, and crew docs. Every job proposal template, safety doc, and employee handbook should be in one place everyone can access. Stop texting files back and forth.
46. Install a website chat widget or SMS-enabled number so leads can text instead of call. A 2024 Podium survey found that 64% of consumers prefer texting a business over calling. Tools like OpenPhone or Podium let you manage texts from a desktop app.
47. Back up your customer database and financial records weekly to a cloud service. If your laptop dies tomorrow, can you recover every customer name, address, and job history? Use your field service software's cloud backup or export to Google Drive weekly.